To the Edior:
We would like to take this opportunity to highlight three important points that Kwame Ture made in his dynamic speech on Pan-Africanism this past Monday. First of all, he provided a withering critique of the capitalist system, and proposed socialism as an alternative. Second of all, he stressed the importance of familiarizing oneself with the works of Karl Marx. And lastly, he emphasized the need for individuals who are committed to the struggle for human liberation to affiliate themselves with organizational structures of some sort.
Keeping this in mind, we would like to extend an invitation to all Oberlin students who are committed to the struggle for human liberation to affiliate themselves in some way with the Oberlin Socialist Student Union. We are a relatively new organization on campus, composed of students from many different backgrounds who all come together based on a common belief that capitalism is fundamentally unreformable, and a common commitment to building socialism. In our short existence, we have already been quite active in numerous labour struggles in our surrounding communities, for example the Bridgestone/Firestone strike in Akron and the WCI Steel lockout in Warren and are currently planning a series of public forums on various subjects related to socialism for after Spring Break. We also have a wide-ranging network of connections with numerous other socialist party organizations in the Cleveland area and around the country.
While we are unquestionably an organization of action, we also believe in the necessity of situating our activism within a well-formulated theoretical framework. As we advocate socialism, this necessarily entails familiarizing ourselves with the basic texts of Marxist theory. To this end, we have begun a Marxist study group, where we take an hour each week to discuss a specific, agreed-upon Marxist text.
We encourage anybody who is interested in finding out more about socialism in general, or about our organization in particular, to come to our meetings. -Barry Eidlin College senior Chair of Oberlin Socialist Student Union -Mary Jerzak College first-year, General Secretary of Oberlin Socialist Student Union
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 124, Number 18; March 15, 1996
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